A documentary that will debut on Netflix next year will reportedly provide new evidence that Michael Rockefeller, the son of former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller, was eaten by cannibals in New Guinea in 1961.

Details of the documentary and its release were reported by New York Post "Page Six" columnist Richard Johnson on Tuesday.

According to Johnson, the movie, "The Search For Michael Rockefeller," will be released on the streaming video service Feb. 1 and it "confirms" that "one of the most compelling unsolved mysteries of the 20th century" ended with the young heir being "devoured." 

Rockefeller, whose great-grandfather was the cofounder of Standard Oil and one of America's wealthiest dynasties, traveled to New Guinea in 1961 to photograph the Asmat people and collect their art. At the time, he was 23-years-old and his father was the governor of New York. He disappeared after a boat he was riding in capsized.

In 2013, Carl Hoffman published a book about Rockefeller that also theorized he was eaten by cannibals. In an excerpt of that book, published by Smithsonian Magazine, Hoffman described the heir's disappearance:

"One moment his boat was being tossed by the waves, just as ours was, and the next he and his Dutch companion were clinging to an overturned hull," Hoffman wrote. "And then Rockefeller had swum for shore and vanished. No trace of him was ever found, despite a two-week search involving ships, airplanes, helicopters and thousands of locals prowling the coasts and jungle swamps."

Rockefeller's death was eventually ruled a drowning, but there have long been questions about this official version of events.

"The Search For Michael Rockefeller" hit the festival circuit in 2011, but it has yet to enjoy a wide release. According to its website, the movie is based on original footage and materials obtained when author and adventurer Milt Machlin mounted an expedition in search of Rockefeller. 

The movie was directed and produced by Fraser Heston, the son of famed actor Charlton Heston. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. 

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Eli Roth's "The Green Inferno" is finally getting a theatrical release after a tumultuous year-long delay, but unfortunately, it really wasn't worth the wait.

Considered a tribute to "Cannibal Holocaust" and exploitation films of the '70s and '80s, Roth's film actually plays more like a knock-off version of its influences than a worthy update.

Following in the footsteps of the subgenre, as well as Roth's own oeuvre, "The Green Inferno" follows a group of naive college kids as they travel to the Amazon with ambitions of saving the world.

They have a plan to stop evil Peruvian militias from destroying the rain forest and displacing/murdering the natives, and even though this proves to be a successful operation, their plane crashes on the way back, and the terror begins.

The rest of the film is a horror show in which our protagonists are imprisoned by a cannibalistic tribe, and one by one the Americans are maimed, cooked, and eaten by the villagers. While the gore is certainly there, Roth simply doesn't take things as far as he should.

"The Green Inferno" doesn't fully commit to the carnage. It's all inherently grisly and horrific, but whenever things get really hairy, you can count on a juvenile reminder that you're watching the work of a not-so-great filmmaker.

There are so many frivolous, tone-altering moments that take the viewer right out of the action.

For example, while the protagonists are all awaiting their gruesome fates, one of them gets really bad diarrhea, which makes the locals laugh. When confronted with the possibility of eating her friends, the very same girl claims she doesn't want to because "she's vegan."

Later, their genius plan to escape involves shoving a bag of marijuana down the throat of one of the deceased so that when the body is cooked, the villagers will all get stoned and become distracted.

It's scenes like these that keep "The Green Inferno" from being the mock-gonzo horror masterpiece it so desperately wants to be. Roth is not one to mask his ambition, and he actually said he wanted to distance himself from "Cannibal Holocaust" and "do something that was much more like a Werner Herzog movie."

In this case, actions speak louder than words, as "The Green Inferno" very much looks and feels like "Cannibal Holocaust." Even the manner in which people die (aside from the cannibalism) is shockingly similar. Homage still requires a twinge of originality.

Squeamish viewers will most likely consider the film among the most repulsive they've ever seen, but more seasoned horror vets will scoff at how few and far between sequences featuring bloodshed are.

The first victim's death is appropriately visceral and hard to watch, but the rest of the carnage is played way too safe. Rather than one-up the film's predecessors, Roth pays homage in ways that actually water down the material. Nobody wants to see a death by CGI ants in this movie, nor do they want any blood and guts to spill offscreen, yet both of these things happen.

It doesn't help that the plotting is too familiar and the characters far too archetypal for their interactions to add any value.

The "final girl" here isn't atypical to the trope in any way, and everything that happens to her can be seen from a mile away. Her entire trajectory is made clear from the very opening sequence in which she's in a college course being lectured on female genital mutilation. When a film is this easy to peg down, it's hard to be that moved by it. One element that actually works fairly well is the film's indictment of "Social Justice Warriors" and "Facebook Activism," or the idea that these college-age kids are so willing to put themselves in danger for a vague cause just to rack up recognition on social media.

The film posits that these acts are more selfish than helpful, as the group is really there to take selfies and look like saints among their friends back home. This adds some relevance and satirical commentary, but it's not enough to do all the heavy lifting.

"The Green Inferno" features a premise so genuinely terrifying that it's extra disappointing when the film doesn't quite live up to it. It's a fine entry in the cannibal movie canon, but it's not the transcendent experience fans were promised.

Watch the trailer below.

"The Green Inferno" opens in limited release Friday, September 25.

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Cannibalism is a clear taboo in our society. But, putting ethics aside, what are the other reasons why you should not eat other humans? The following is a transcript of the video.

Did you know that cannibalism used to be a popular medical remedy?

That’s right! In the 17th century, well before Advil Europeans would ingest ground up mummies for headaches. And human fat, blood, and bone were used to treat everything from gout to nosebleeds. 

Yet cannibalism is largely absent and morally frowned upon in today. But let’s forget the social quagmire. There are plenty of reasons why you shouldn’t eat people these days.

For starters, we now know that human meat is a surprisingly low source of calories compared to other red meat. According to one study human muscle contains about 1,300 calories per kilogram. That’s less than beef and nothing compared to bear and boar meat.

Now, you might think this would actually make human burgers a great low-cal alternative until you remember you’re probably trying to eat humans because you’re starving to death. So, low-cal is the opposite of what you want.

Plus it’s not worth taking the risk — if you can help it. Turns out, we carry some pretty nasty diseases that make 24-hour food poisoning look like the sniffles. Eat someone raw, and you risk contracting any blood-borne diseases they carried.

But even if you cook the meat, it still won’t always go well for you. Case in point are the Fore people of Papua New Guinea. They would eat the body and brain of deceased family members out of cultural tradition. But that practice stopped after hundreds of people died in the 1950s and ‘60s from an otherwise rare neurological disorder which they contracted from eating infected human brains.

Turns out, the brain tissue contained prions — deadly misfolded proteins that form spongy holes in your brain. They survive the cooking process and, if eaten, are highly contagious.

On the legal side of things, cannibalism falls into a gray area. Oddly enough, cannibalism itself is not illegal in the US or UK, but you probably committed some crime along the way to get that slab of meat.

Grave robbing, desecration of a corpse, murder, or maybe all of the above?

One exception that won’t put you behind bars, is if you eat … yourself! Yup, that’s a thing. It’s called autocannibalism.

The most common example today, called placentophagy, is when a woman eats her placenta after giving birth. The idea is that it can raise energy levels and reduce the risk of postpartum depression by stabilizing hormones. But the science is still out on whether there’s any real benefit.

Regardless, this ancient practice has recently found new life in Western culture. Kim Kardashian and Alicia Silverstone have reportedly done it. And there are numerous US companies that will grind your placenta into a powder so you can take it like any other vitamin supplement. 

But the CDC warns that even this cutting-edge form of cannibalism is a bad idea. Because it can transfer harmful bacteria from mother to child. 

So, if you have a hankering for human, maybe try some pork instead. After all — that’s what we taste like. Wait … we obviously mean: ACCORDING TO CANNIBALS ANYWAYS!

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